An Interview with Filmmaker Nathan Punwar ? The Digital Den

Nathan Punwar is an independent filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He screened his last short film, ?Memory By Design,? at the New York Film Festival and Slamdance Film Festival, among others. In 2012, he edited ?Charlie Is My Darling ? Ireland 1965,? an hour-long documentary on The Rolling Stones constructed entirely from footage shot over one weekend, revealing unseen live performances and backstage antics of the band in their youth. His latest directorial project, a 25-minute narrative short film titled, ?Loves of a Cyclops,? will be playing festivals this year. He collects the current and ongoing projects he makes with friends at the website incompleterecordings.com.

SeagateCreative: Tell us about the inspiration behind the story for your new short film, ?Loves of a Cyclops??

NP: Nathan Punwar: A few years ago, I had an image in my mind of a person with a lens for an eye ? someone who saw the world through a viewfinder instead of his own eye. It was just that image. I thought I might animate it.

Over time, I started to think about what it would mean to require a device to translate the world into something that made sense, and how each animal sees the world differently. Each eye is a different lens, a different interpretation. These thoughts formed a story about a one-eyed man who can?t see the world his peers do, so he struggles to find his place in it.

SC: When you have a new, fresh idea, how do you decide if it?s worth pursuing?

NP: It?s just a matter of how persistent the idea is, how long it can stick in your head and refuse to leave. So you have no choice but to give into the idea until you get it out of your head. For me, getting it out involves walking it down every potential avenue and then backtracking to the one path that seems best to explain it to everyone else.

SC: Do you have a specific technique or ritual you use for creating?

NP: There is no technique other than to try to allow myself to be as perceptive as possible to my surroundings. This includes truly listening to people, which isn?t always as easy as it seems it should be. So there?s that, and the fine balance between it and allowing the mind to wander and float away on a tangent midday.

SC: You wrote, directed, and edited this film. Is there a particular step you find the most creative?

NP: It?s all creative and fulfilling. Writing is the most frustrating and potentially rewarding. If that goes well, and it rarely does, it makes the rest more fruitful, because you?re crafting from material that is already quality. But each part relies so precariously on the others to succeed, which is why I like doing all of it, but definitely not all at once.

SC: In terms of gear and equipment, is there a specific piece that helped you create a breakthrough in filmmaking?

NP: Simply owning a camera that we can use both casually and professionally? Even though we want to spend as much time as possible preparing to make a film as good as it can be, now we can shoot something that strikes us at any moment and repurpose it later, or play with the footage anywhere. At the very least, this means my sketchbook is no longer restricted to the page.

SC: Is there any experience you have from other art forms that play into your ability to make a film?

NP: Though I?m not a true musician, I?ve played music my whole life. I might consume more music than I do films, so a soundtrack is always on my mind. But I try other arts, even ones I?m bad at, because good films involve photography, performance, writing, design, music, fashion, architecture, lighting, and more. If one falters, so does the end result.

A film may not be pure in the same way other arts are, but it has the ability tie them together to convey something in a way that none can on their own, which is why I want to understand and answer to each and every aspect individually.

SC: How did you work on the music for this film, then?

NP: Our composer is Mike Schanzlin, and I would say he and I are on a similar wavelength with music. We make mixes together, and talk about collaborating on ideas often, even though he really knows how to record and play, and I don?t. So he turns my abstract descriptors into musical themes with his studio magic. There was one song I really wanted to include, though, outside of our original score. It?s an early demo recording by Real Estate, and the guys in the band were very cool about letting us use it in the film.

SC: Where there any significant obstacles you encountered while trying to make this film?

NP: Our greatest obstacles were really self-imposed. We decided upon three things from the beginning. The first was that we would primarily cast non-professional actors, mostly friends. The second was that we would make the film with equipment we owned or had access to, with no real budget other than what I could afford to spend out of my own pocket. The third was that we would schedule around everyone?s day jobs. For these reasons and more, it took us about a year to finish a 25-minute film. But these limitations also led us to have some of the most fun and strange experiences on our shoots, the kind you can?t have on a set where significant money is being spent every minute.

SC: What?s one piece of advice you?d give an aspiring filmmaker to help them develop their ideas?

NP: I?m still aspiring, too, so I guess my advice to myself is to take a different route each time. Whoever didn?t get the last thing might get the next thing. Even if I?m still exploring the same ideas that interest me most, at least it?ll be in new and different ways, allowing the work to discover more deeply, or at least find its way to new audiences.

SC: Where is ?Loves of a Cyclops? screening and what?s next from you that we can look forward to?

NP: ?Loves of a Cyclops? will be screening at festivals this year, with additional screenings in New York City. My partner Kathleen Kyllo (who produced and stars in Loves of a Cyclops) and I are attempting our first feature script together, or some kind of series, or whatever it turns into. At some point, we?ll have to figure out a way to finance these things, but for now, we?re just focused on trying to write something true and good.

Source: http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2013/04/the-digital-den/an-interview-with-filmmaker-nathan-punwar/

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Neuroscientists use statistical model to draft fantasy teams of neurons

Apr. 29, 2013 ? This past weekend teams from the National Football League used statistics like height, weight and speed to draft the best college players, and in a few weeks, armchair enthusiasts will use similar measures to select players for their own fantasy football teams. Neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon University are taking a similar approach to compile "dream teams" of neurons using a statistics-based method that can evaluate the fitness of individual neurons.

After assembling the teams, a computer simulation pitted the groups of neurons against one another in a playoff-style format to find out which population was the best. Researchers analyzed the winning teams to see what types of neurons made the most successful squads.

The results were published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 29.

"We wanted to know what team of neurons would be most likely to perform best in response to a variety of stimuli," said Nathan Urban, the Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences and head of the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon.

The human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons that work together in smaller groups to complete certain tasks like processing an odor, or seeing a color. Previous work by Urban's lab found that no two neurons are exactly alike and that diverse teams of neurons were better able to determine a stimulus than teams of similar neurons.

"The next step in our work was to figure out how to assemble the best possible population of neurons in order to complete a task," said Urban, who is also a member of the joint Carnegie Mellon/University of Pittsburgh Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC).

However, using existing methods, scouting for the best team of neurons was a seemingly daunting task. It would be impossible for scientists to determine how each of the billions of neurons in the brain would individually respond to a multitude of stimuli. Urban and Shreejoy Tripathy, the article's lead author and graduate student in the CNBC's Program in Neural Computation, solved this problem using a statistical modeling approach, known as generalized linear models (GLMs), to analyze the cell-to-cell variability. Urban and Tripathy found that by applying this approach they were able to accurately reproduce the behavior of individual neurons in a computer, allowing them to gather statistics on each single cell.

Then, much like in fantasy football, the computer model used the statistics to put together thousands of teams of neurons. The teams competed against one another in a computer simulation to see which were able to most accurately recreate a stimulus delivered to the team of neurons. In the end researchers identified a small set of teams that they could study to see what characteristics made those populations successful.

They found that the winning teams of neurons were diverse but not as diverse as they would be if they were selected at random from the general population of neurons. The most successful sets contained a heterogeneous group of neurons that were flexible and able to respond well to a variety of stimuli.

"You can't have a football team made up of only linebackers. You need linebackers and tight ends, a quarterback and a kicker. But, the players can't just be random people off of the street; they all need to be good athletes. And you need to draft for positions, not just the best player available. If your best player is a quarterback -- you don't take another quarterback with your first pick," Urban said. "It's the same with neurons. To make the most effective grouping of neurons, you need a diverse bunch that also happens to be more robust and flexible than your average neuron."

Urban believes that GLMs can be used to further understand the importance of neuronal diversity. He plans to use the models to predict how alterations in the variability of neurons' responses, which can be caused by learning or disease, impact function.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Shreejoy J. Tripathy, Krishnan Padmanabhan, Richard C. Gerkin, and Nathaniel N. Urban. Intermediate intrinsic diversity enhances neural population coding. PNAS, April 29, 2013 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221214110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/UpRHO-B1TAY/130429154105.htm

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Gov't does not honour our invitation for negotiations ? President GMA

The President of the Ghana Medical Association Dr. Kwabena Opoku Adusei has disclosed that government appears disinterested, in honouring their invitation to come to the negotiation table to resolve the 23 days old strike declared by the Association.

Speaking on Adom Tv's morning show Badwam, Dr. Opku Adusei said although government was trying hard to make unpopular, the decision by the GMA to continue the strike, the leadership of the GMA had been writing letters to government to return to the negotiation table.

Dr. Opoku Adusei alleged that the Minister of Health Sherry Ayitey and Minister of Employment and Social Welfare Nii Armah Ashitey both shunned a meeting slated for Monday.

The Ghana Medical Association hoped to have ended the problem after meeting them yesterday, yet there was no show, he said.

He accused government of showing more interest in the Supreme Court hearing than in resolving the problem.

But the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health Tony Goodman has denied knowledge of any such meeting.

He stated the Ministry could not have honoured any meeting with the leadership of GMA yesterday because it was holding a health summit at GIMPA.

He explained that his Ministry was prepared to meet the group to resolve the problem.

Source: http://www.modernghana.com/news/461258/1/govt-does-not-honour-our-invitation-for-negotiatio.html

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Owner of collapsed building captured in Bangladesh

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) -- The fugitive owner of an illegally constructed building that collapsed and killed at least 377 people was captured Sunday by a commando force as he tried to flee into India. At the disaster site, meanwhile, fire broke out in the wreckage and forced authorities to suspend the search for survivors temporarily.

Mohammed Sohel Rana was arrested in the western Bangladesh border town of Benapole, said Jahangir Kabir Nanak, junior minister for local government. Rana was brought back by helicopter to the capital of Dhaka where he faced charges of negligence.

Rana's capture was announced by loudspeaker at the disaster site, drawing cheers and applause from those awaiting the outcome of a continuing search-and-rescue operation for survivors of Wednesday's collapse.

Many of those killed were workers at clothing factories in the building, known as the Rana Plaza, and the collapse was the deadliest disaster to hit the garment industry in Bangladesh that is worth $20 billion annually and is a mainstay of the economy.

The fire that broke out late Sunday night sent smoke pouring from the piles of shattered concrete and halted some of the rescue efforts ? including a bid to free a woman who was found trapped in the rubble.

The blaze was caused by sparks as rescuers tried to cut through a steel rod to reach the woman, said a volunteer, Syed Al-Amin Roman. At least three rescuers were injured in the fire, he said. It forced them to retreat while firefighters frantically hosed down the flames.

Officials believe the fire is likely to have killed the trapped woman, said army spokesman Shahinul Islam. Rescue workers had delayed the use of heavy equipment for several hours in the hope that she could be extricated from the rubble first. But with the woman presumed dead, they began using heavy equipment around midnight.

An exhausted and disheveled Rana was brought before reporters briefly at the Dhaka headquarters of the commando team, the Rapid Action Battalion.

Wearing a printed shirt, Rana was sweating as two security officers held him by his arms. A security official helped him to drink water after he gestured he was thirsty. He did not speak during the 10-minute appearance, and he is likely to be handed over to police, who will have to charge him and produce him in court within 24 hours.

A small-time politician from the ruling Awami League party, Rana had been on the run since the building collapsed Wednesday. He last appeared in public Tuesday in front of the Rana Plaza after huge cracks appeared in the building. Witnesses said he assured tenants, including five garment factories, that the building was safe.

A bank and some shops on the first floor closed Wednesday after police ordered an evacuation, but managers of the garment factories on the upper floor told workers to continue their shifts.

Hours later, the Rana Plaza was reduced to rubble, crushing most victims under massive blocks of concrete.

Rana's arrest was ordered by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also the Awami League leader.

On Saturday, police arrested three owners of two factories. Also detained were Rana's wife and two government engineers who were involved in giving approval for the building design. Local TV stations reported that the Bangladesh High Court has frozen the bank accounts of the owners of all five garment factories in the Rana Plaza.

Three floors of the eight-story building apparently were built illegally.

A garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside when it fell. About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for.

Army Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the coordinator of the rescue operations, said the next phase of the search involved the heavy equipment such as hydraulic cranes that were brought to the disaster site Sunday. Searchers had been manually shifting concrete blocks with the help of light equipment such as pickaxes and shovels, he said.

The work will be carried out carefully so as not to mutilate bodies, he said. "We have engaged many private sector companies which supplied us equipment, even some heavy ones," Suhrawardy said.

In a rare bit of good news, a female worker was pulled out alive Sunday. Rescuer Hasan Akbari said when he tried to extricate a man next to the woman, "he said his body was being torn apart. So I had to let go. But God willing, we will be able to rescue him with more help very soon."

The collapse and previous disasters in garment factories have focused attention on the poor working conditions of workers who toil for as little as $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

The death toll surpassed a fire five months ago that killed 112 people and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. But since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh.

Its garment industry was the third-largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.

Britain's Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not recently ordered garments from them.

Wal-Mart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

__

AP writers Farid Hossain and Gillian Wong in Dhaka contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/owner-collapsed-building-captured-bangladesh-184621056.html

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Syrian TV reports blast near Damascus school

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ? Syrian state-run TV says an explosion has taken place near a school in the capital, Damascus.

The TV says the blast struck on Monday in the capital's western neighborhood of Mazzeh. State-run news agency said there are casualties.

Damascus has been hit by a string of explosions in recent months that has left hundreds of people dead or wounded.

The Syrian government says Muslim extremists trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad are to blame for the attacks.

Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011 but eventually turned into civil war. The United Nations says that more than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-tv-reports-blast-near-damascus-school-072333342.html

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Connecting the Dots Between CrossFit and Beer on Behalf of Our Vets

Beer me!

Sure, but first you?ll need to lift either 75, 95, or 115 pounds as many times from the ground to full lockout overhead within a total of five minutes.

And that?s just the first of three work outs that were slated for the fundraiser for X-sports 4 Vets?on behalf of Vets. The event, hosted by CrossFit Emergence and Tamarack Brewing Company took place Saturday, April 27th, at Caras Park. All proceeds of the $50 registration fee went to X-Sports. So with over 100 CrossFit athletes participating, there was a substantial amount of funds raised on behalf of? our Vets.

The second workout was even harder. In 10 minutes, row 1,000 meters, then jump off the rower and in the remaining time, find and do your 5 rep max dead lift. Whew! Now if that?s not enough (and it was), you then reset your bar with 95 pounds and do as many rounds in 6 minutes of front rack lunges x 10 followed by 10 hand release pushups. Killer!

Brent Dodge, PT of Alpine Physical Therapy will testify in a heart beat that work out number two was indeed a killer. The picture below shows a smiling Brent . . . BEFORE said workout. We deleted all pictures of his facial grimace that he donned following the event!

His face was a bit brighter when after doing 76 reps in five minutes with 75 pounds (a total of 5,700 pounds), Brent discovered that he placed 11th in work out number one!

For participants who were still alive and kicking, the third work was a seven minute workout consisting of three movements. First, squat clean 155 pounds four times, then do six 24-inch box jumps, then do 15 jump rope double unders. The aim was to do as many rounds of these three movements in seven minutes. Killer. Double killer!

Upon completion of each of these three work outs, you can now guzzle a delicious brew available ring-side by Tamarack Brewing Company. Burp! Double burp!

Special thanks to Tamarack Brewing Company and to David Johns, owner of CrossFit Emergence in Missoula for the amazing work they did to make this meaningful fund raiser possible!

Source: http://healthandfitness101.com/?p=3773&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=connecting-the-dots-between-crossfit-and-beer-on-behalf-of-our-vets

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Fire extinguished at Marathon Detroit refinery

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A fire on Saturday night at a Detroit crude oil refinery that forced the partial evacuation of the town of Melvindale, Michigan, has been extinguished, said a spokesman for the plant's owner, Marathon Petroleum Corp.

No injuries were reported at the refinery from the blaze in a tank containing wastewater from the refining process, said Marathon spokesman Shane Pochard.

"We're working with Melvindale police to return residents to their homes," Pochard said. "That has not yet been completed."

Melvindale Police Sergeant Michael Welch said the evacuation order was canceled before all the residents of a square mile (2.6 square km) of the Detroit suburb could be evacuated. He did not know how many residents were affected.

The blaze broke out about 6 p.m. EDT and was extinguished at about 8 p.m.

"As far as I know, the refinery is still operating normally," Pochard said.

Pochard and Welch said air monitoring in Melvindale showed the air in the community was within acceptable levels.

The tank contained what is called sour water, which includes hydrogen sulfide and ammonia from crude oil refining. The pollutants have to be stripped from the water before it can be reused or sent to an outside wastewater system.

Marathon's Detroit refinery is the only one in the state and can refine up to 106,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-extinguished-marathon-detroit-refinery-no-injuries-005303527.html

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Some say immigration bill is bad deal for the GOP

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Some feisty Republicans are challenging a claim widely held among GOP leaders that the party must support more liberal immigration laws if it's to be more competitive in presidential elections.

These doubters say the Republican establishment has the political calculation backward. Immigration "reform," they say, will mean millions of new Democratic-leaning voters by granting citizenship to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants now living illegally in the United States.

The argument is dividing the party as it tries to reposition itself after losing the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. It also could endanger President Barack Obama's bid for a legacy-building rewrite of the nation's problematic immigration laws.

Many conservatives "are scared to death" that the Republican Party "is committing suicide, that we're going to end up legalizing 9 million automatic Democrat voters," radio host Rush Limbaugh recently told Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a leader of the bipartisan team pushing an immigration overhaul.

Strategists in both parties say several factors, including income levels, would make many, and probably most, newly enfranchised immigrants pro-Democratic, at least for a time.

Rubio says the risk is worth taking.

"Every political movement, conservatism included, depends on the ability to convince people that do not agree with you now to agree with you in the future," he told Limbaugh.

Politically, Republicans face two bad options.

They can try to improve relations with existing Latino voters by backing a plan that seems likely to add many Democratic-leaning voters in the years ahead. Or they can stick with a status quo in which their presidential nominees are losing badly among the electorate's fastest-growing segment.

In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who suggested that vanishing job opportunities would prompt immigrants to "self deport," carried only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. A Republican Party study of that election concluded, among other things, that the GOP must appeal to more Hispanics, and to do so it must "embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform."

Party leaders say the harsh language that some Republicans use when discussing illegal immigration has angered many Americans with Hispanic heritages.

Rubio's bipartisan group has proposed legislation to strengthen border security, allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status, and provide an eventual path to citizenship for some 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally.

Even if the bill survives the Democratic-controlled Senate, stiff resistance is expected in the GOP-dominated House. Many House Republicans dislike the idea of "amnesty" for those who crossed the border illegally, and some say it's foolish to enfranchise likely Democratic voters.

Obama embraces the Rubio plan, and it won crucial praise from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., last year's vice presidential nominee.

Rubio and his allies challenge the notion that creating a way to citizenship for millions of people here illegally will dramatically increase Democratic turnout in future elections.

"Not all 11 million illegal immigrants here today will qualify to become citizens, and not all of the 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanic," according to Rubio's "Myth vs. Fact" website. The site says many immigrants will not choose to become citizens, and many new citizens, like many current ones, will not bother to vote.

Some Republican campaign strategists, however, say the political damage would be worse than party leaders acknowledge.

Republican consultant and pollster Mike McKenna said one of his surveys shows that most Americans favor "immigration reform" and they believe it will benefit Democrats more than Republicans.

In an interview, McKenna said Republican leaders are embracing Rubio's plan without sufficient data on where it might lead. "I think about two months from now, the folks in the establishment are going to wish they hadn't started this conversation," McKenna said.

Party leaders erred, he said, by couching the immigration debate in political rather than moral terms. "The argument that it's going to be politically advantageous is not going to be sustainable over time," McKenna said.

Political activists have swapped estimates of how many people now living here illegally might choose to become citizens, register to vote and turn out for Democratic candidates if a path to citizenship is opened. Even the most conservative guesses assume that Democrats would benefit more than Republicans, initially, at least.

Rubio's allies play it down.

"The status quo is not acceptable to Republican voters," said GOP consultant Kevin Madden, who has worked for Romney and others. Republican leaders, he said, must push for the best rewrite of immigration laws they can achieve.

Texas-based GOP consultant Matt Mackowiak noted that evangelical leaders, major business groups and others that opposed immigration changes in 2007 are now on board. He said the Republican Party should focus on attracting Hispanic voters with its standard message of small government and free enterprise, and not worry too much if a new law produces more Democratic-leaning voters for a while.

"If we don't win 40 to 45 percent of Hispanics," Mackowiak said, "we're not going to win elections regardless of whether this happens."

Limbaugh is among those who don't buy it.

"I see polling data again that suggests that 70 percent of the Hispanic population in the country believes that government is the primary source of prosperity," he told Rubio in their recent exchange. "I don't, therefore, understand this contention that Hispanics are conservatives-in-waiting."

___

Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-bill-bad-deal-gop-132850249.html

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Pat Healy submits Jim Miller at UFC 159, but Bruce Buffer almost announces wrong winner

Jim Miller is 5-foot-8, fights at 155 lbs., and has a bushy red beard. Pat Healy is 5-foot-9, fights at 155 lbs., and sported a trimmed red beard at UFC 159. Can you blame UFC announcer Bruce Buffer for mixing them up?

Healy, who returned to the UFC after spending much of his career in Strikeforce, put Miller to sleep with a rear naked choke in the third round of their thrilling bout. As the two stood on either side of referee Herb Dean to have the fight result announced, Buffer announced the winner by submission was Jim Mill-Pat Healy!

Healy smiled and corrected Buffer, who rarely makes such errors. It was a lighthearted moment that Healy laughed about after a thrilling bout.

Miller started out landing leg kicks and used ground and pound to beat up Healy in the first round. Near the end of the round, Healy was saved by the bell as Miller's ground and pound was close to ending the bout before the horn sounded.

[Also: Two bizarre endings mar UFC 159 prelims]

It was in the third that Healy turned the bout around. Healy weakened Miller with striking, then took him down and took his back. He sunk in the rear naked choke, and Miller's arms went limp. The fight was stopped at 4:02 in the third because Miller was out.

Miller wanted to use the bout to convince UFC president Dana White that he was ready for a title shot. Instead, it was Healy who stood out. In his post-fight interview with UFC commentator, he warned other UFC lightweights to watch out because he was "putting them on blast."

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/pat-healy-submits-jim-miller-ufc-159-bruce-030349579.html

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Packers sign Rodgers to $110M contract extension

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) ? This ought to give Aaron Rodgers better memories of the NFL draft.

The Green Bay Packers signed their franchise quarterback Friday to a five-year contract extension through the 2019 season, eight years after they stopped his slide down the draft board and took him with the 24th pick in the first round.

The deal, according to a person with knowledge of the contract who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team has not released the details, is worth as much as $110 million, with $40 million guaranteed. The $22 million annual average of the extension is the highest salary in NFL history, slightly trumping the $120.6 million that the Baltimore Ravens gave quarterback Joe Flacco last month over six years.

"I'm excited to know my future is here and I'll be here for a lot longer," Rodgers said inside the locker room at Lambeau Field.

Locking up Rodgers was a priority for the Packers, who also reached a long-term extension with linebacker Clay Matthews this month worth as much as $66 million over five years. The Packers are 53-27 in five years with Rodgers as the starter, and he led them to the Super Bowl title following the 2010 season.

"An exciting day for our football program," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "Aaron is an excellent illustration of a Green Bay Packer. It is truly a blessing to witness his continued accomplishments, both on and off the field."

Rodgers has thrown for 21,661 yards and 171 touchdowns, and he has had a quarterback rating of 101.2 or better in all but one season as a starter. His quarterback rating of 122.5 in 2011 is an NFL record.

The finalization of the extension, which was worked on for the last few months, came on the same late-April weekend on which Rodgers was snubbed by almost every other team in the NFL draft. A standout at Cal, Rodgers was expected to be taken early in the first round in 2005. But he soon found himself alone in the green room.

Rodgers acknowledged that prove-the-doubters-wrong attitude he's used to his benefit throughout his career since that day he was ignored by so many in the draft.

"I have a good memory, and I'm driven to be the best," Rodgers said. "Obviously, there's a couple less critics out there now, but I still put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve the goals I set for myself here and enjoy trying to meet the challenge that those goals bring and also opposing teams bring."

Draft day wasn't the only rough spot for Rodgers in his career.

He arrived in Green Bay as the backup to Brett Favre, who wasn't thrilled the team had found his heir apparent. Favre kept fans and the franchise on their toes every offseason from then on, flirting with the idea of retiring but always coming back. When the tension finally snapped in 2008 ? Favre retired, changed his mind and asked for his job back ? Rodgers found himself in the middle of the most-bitter divorce in Wisconsin history.

Favre was traded to the New York Jets during training camp, but many fans remained loyal to him. They took their anger at the organization out on Rodgers, even booing him at the team's "Family Night" scrimmage. Rodgers kept his composure, never firing back at fans or even publicly criticizing Favre.

Rodgers played well in his first year as a starter. Despite a 6-10 record, he showed flashes of why general manager Ted Thompson had such faith in him, and fans began to come around. Any lingering animosity disappeared after he led the Packers to the playoffs following the 2009 season, and he's now one of the most beloved figures in Wisconsin sports history. The Wisconsin Legislature designated Dec. 12, 2012, as "Aaron Rodgers Day," and students and workers throughout the state were encouraged to celebrate by wearing his jersey.

When he was shown on the scoreboard at the Milwaukee Bucks' playoff game against the Miami Heat on Thursday, he got one of the biggest cheers of the night.

Rodgers holds four of Green Bay's top five single-season marks for passer rating (2009-12) and two of the top three for passing TDs (2011-12). He also has three of the top four records for completion percentage (2010-12) and two of the top three for passing yards (2009, 2011).

Rodgers will be 36 when the deal ends. He said he thinks he has at least eight years left in his legs and his body, when asked if wondered if this would be his last contract.

"A lot of times you don't see a deal all the way through if you're playing well. It's just the nature of some of these contracts. That's a long way off. In order to even get to that conversation, it's going to take many years in a row at a consistently high level of play for me, which I expect to do," Rodgers said. "And I'm going to get myself in the best shape mentally and physically to do that, and hopefully we can have that conversation in seven years where I can still play and maybe we can keep this thing going."

___

AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner in New York and AP National Writer Nancy Armour from Milwaukee contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://www.pro32.ap.org

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/packers-sign-rodgers-110m-contract-extension-225159904.html

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Suspect indicted in Las Vegas Strip carnage

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? A self-described pimp was indicted Friday on charges that could bring the death penalty if he is convicted in a fatal shooting and fiery crash that killed three people on the Las Vegas Strip in February.

In an unexpected move, the Clark County District Court grand jury also indicted Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 27, on a charge of robbery and three felony sex assault counts in a 2010 rape case that had been dismissed last year when the alleged victim refused to testify.

Prosecutor David Stanton said the second indictment didn't represent double-jeopardy under Nevada law because the earlier case was dismissed without prejudice before a preliminary hearing. That let prosecutors seek new charges when the alleged victim, who now lives in Texas, testified before the grand jury in Las Vegas.

The rape charges could put Harris in prison for a minimum of 10 years. He could get two to 15 years on the robbery charge if convicted.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said he was considering the death penalty in the Las Vegas Strip incident but had not made a decision. Wolfson was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment.

The indictment in the Strip shooting and crash accused Harris of the same 11 felonies contained in a criminal complaint filed Feb. 22: Three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and seven counts of discharging a weapon.

Harris is expected to plead not guilty at his arraignment May 6 in Clark County District Court in both cases. A Monday court date in Las Vegas Justice Court was canceled.

Harris was being held without bail at the Clark County jail in Las Vegas. His lawyers, David Schieck and Randall Pike, weren't immediately available for comment.

Tourists compared the carnage and crashes early Feb. 21 to a Hollywood action film. The stunningly violent shooting occurred at the busy intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, which is flanked by Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Bally's and the Flamingo.

Harris is accused of shooting from a black Range Rover into a Maserati sports car that then slammed into a taxi that burst into flames. Taxi driver Michael Boldon, 62, of Las Vegas, and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Wash., were killed. The Maserati driver, 27-year-old Kenneth Cherry Jr., died at a hospital.

Another man in the Maserati suffered gunshot wounds and survived. Five other people in several other vehicles suffered lesser injuries.

Police said Harris and Cherry had exchanged angry words at a casino valet stand before speeding with tires squealing up the neon-splashed Strip. Investigators found no gun in the Maserati and no evidence that Cherry returned fire before crashing.

Long before the shooting, Harris posted videos of himself fanning a stack of $100 bills and boasting about luxury cars, prostitutes and living in a house full of women who were all paying him. Records showed he lived in Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas.

Records also show Harris was never convicted of pimping. But the 2010 case prompted police to seek charges of pandering by force and felon in possession of a concealed weapon. Prosecutors went ahead with robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and coercion with a weapon charges before the case was dropped.

Harris was previously convicted in South Carolina in 2004 of felony possession with intent to sell a stolen pistol and convicted in Atlanta of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge.

___

Find Ken Ritter on Twitter: http://twitter.com/krttr

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-indicted-las-vegas-strip-carnage-234734075.html

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'Project Runway' winner discusses Daniel feud

Lifetime

Michelle Lesniak Franklin, the winner of "Project Runway."

By Drusilla Moorhouse, TODAY contributor

Michelle Lesniak Franklin got her last kill on "Project Runway." The "lone wolf" was crowned the winner of the team-themed 11th season, besting fellow finalists Stanley Hudson and Patricia Michaels with a nearly flawless collection inspired by her experience struggling to survive on the competition.

"It was the strangest experience ever," the scrappy Portland-based designer told TODAY.com. "It really is a Petri dish, and you learn so much about yourself over the course of time."

Stanley, unfortunately, didn't learn from his "time management issues" and barely managed to dress his models minutes before the show. "He's so incredibly talented," said Michelle. "It kind of fell apart for him at the end." ?

While Stanley and Patricia were frantic in the workroom, Michelle had time to relax and enjoy her completed collection.

"I just really like to be prepared and always put my best foot forward," she said. "Not that the other designers didn't take this seriously, but perhaps I took the weight of the seriousness heavier than they did. I was just really smart about it. It's 'Project Runway' -- they can throw three more challenges (at contestants) in one day, so I wanted to be prepared for that."

She was also prepared to hear criticism from the judges for her graphic bleeding heart sweater, which Tim Gunn loathed and begged her to remove from her collection. Instead, the judges all loved it -- so did she make the mentor eat crow? ??

"When we were watching the runway backstage on the television, and it walked down the runway, he was like, 'I totally take back what I said,'" she recounted. "He's like, 'It's stunning!'"

She also got sweet revenge after the judges bashed her design for the Miranda Lambert challenge.

"The one judge comment you dread to hear is 'I question their taste,' -- and they 'questioned my taste' (when critiquing) my leather vest and this leather fringe necklace," Michelle shared, adding: "H&M just made that necklace! So yeah, that was funny to me."

Michelle herself brought plenty of funny to the show, from her spot-on Nina Garcia impressions to her candid remarks about her fellow contestants.

"Sometimes it came across as mean," she said with some regret. "I know at one point I said that Tu couldn?t sew for s---. Well, that dress he did was terrible, but Tu is actually an incredible sewer. And an incredible technician. I ended up apologizing for that."

"I think a few people had hurt feelings, and for the most part I was really straightforward with them," she continued. "I'd tell them before (the 'confessional' interviews) even aired: ?'Hey guys this is what I said. And this is what I meant by it.'"

Not everyone has been forgiving, though -- especially Daniel.

"When someone takes a ball from you in kindergarten, you go to first grade (and) you need to let go of it," she said, referring to the emotional mustachioed designer's overreaction to her comment about his pink jacket. "You need to not hold a grudge and get over it."

Michelle promised more fireworks when the gang reunites in next week's reunion special.

"There are some adults, designers on this show, who haven't quite figured out how to grow up," she said.

Do you think Michelle deserved to win "Project Runway"? Tell us on our Facebook page!

Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/04/26/17934056-project-runway-winner-michelle-on-daniel-feud?lite

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Fuel Barge Explosions: Ships Explode On Mobile River, Injuring 3 (VIDEO)

Three people were seriously injured when two barges previously loaded with liquid natural gas exploded on the east side of the Mobile River in Alabama on Wednesday evening.

The first barge blew up around 8:30 p.m. CDT. According to AL.com, the blast rattled windows in downtown Mobile and blew open doors in Spanish Fort.

Since then, six additional explosions have been heard.

Alan Waugh, general manager of the Ft. Conde Inn, told WALA-TV that he saw and heard the explosions.

"We were up on a second floor balcony and the sky lit up in orange and yellow, Waugh said. "My partner was on one end of the balcony and I was on the other. And you thought it was the Carnival cruise ship first, but then you realized it was a little further from the ship. It sounded like planes above you dropping bombs when it first went off."

Three workers with Oil Recovery Co. were taken to USA Medical Center with burns. A hospital spokesperson said all three patients are currently in critical condition.

Firefighters from Mobile, Ala., and U.S. Coast Guard crews were dispatched to the scene, The Associated Press reported.

The fire department's Twitter feed reported that the situation was too unstable to engage, and firefighters decided to let the blaze burn overnight.

At this time, the cause of the explosions is unknown.

MORE FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS:

MOBILE, Ala. ? A large fire that began with explosions aboard two fuel barges in Mobile, Ala., was rocked by a seventh explosion early Thursday and fire officials said they planned to let the fire, which has injured three, burn overnight.

Firefighters from Mobile and U.S. Coast Guard officials responded after 8:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday to a pair of explosions involving the gas barges in an area of the Mobile River east of downtown, authorities said.

As they were responding, a third explosion occurred around 9:30 p.m., Mobile Fire and Rescue spokesman Steve Huffman wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Additional explosions followed over the next few hours.

The Coast Guard said early Thursday that a one-nautical-mile safety zone had been established around one barge, which it said was "at the dock for cleaning."

Authorities said three people were transported to University of South Alabama Medical Center after suffering burn-related injuries. Huffman identified them as workers with Oil Recovery Co. The three were in critical condition early Thursday, according to hospital nursing administrator Danny Whatley.

Across the river, the Carnival Triumph, the cruise ship that became disabled in the Gulf of Mexico last February before it was towed to Mobile's port, was evacuated, said Alan Waugh, who lives at the Fort Conde Inn in downtown Mobile, across the river from the scene of the explosions. Waugh saw the blasts and said throngs of Carnival employees and others were clustered on streets leading toward the river as authorities evacuated the shipyard.

"It literally sounded like bombs going off around. The sky just lit up in orange and red," he said, "We could smell something in the air, we didn't know if it was gas or smoke." Waugh said he could feel the heat from the explosion and when he came back inside, his partner noticed he had what appeared to be black soot on his face.

U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Carlos Vega said the initial blast took place in a ship channel near the George C. Wallace Tunnel ? which carries traffic from Interstate 10 under the Mobile River. The river runs south past Mobile and into Mobile Bay, which in turn flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, Huffman and Vega said.

"Once (the fire) is out and safe, a full investigation will take place," Huffman wrote.

Mobile Fire Chief Steve Dean told AL.com he was confident the fire wouldn't spread to nearby industrial properties, including the shipyard where the Carnival cruise ship is docked.

Huffman said the ship is directly across the river from the incident ? about two football fields in length.

The barges are owned by Houston-based Kirby Inland Marine, company spokesman Greg Beuerman said. He said the barges were empty and being cleaned at the Oil Recovery Co. facility when the incident began. He said the barges had been carrying a liquid called natural gasoline ? which he said is neither liquefied natural gas or natural gas. He said the company has dispatched a team to work with investigators to determine what caused the fire.

The explosion comes two months after the 900-foot-long Carnival Triumph was towed to Mobile after becoming disabled on the Gulf during a cruise by an engine room fire, leaving thousands of passengers to endure cold food, unsanitary conditions and power outages for several days. The ship is still undergoing repairs there, with many workers living on board.

Carnival didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment late Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the cruise ship was dislodged from its mooring by a windstorm that also caused, in a separate incident, two shipyard workers to fall into Mobile Bay. While one worker was rescued, the other's body was pulled from the water more than a week later.

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/fuel-barge-explosion_n_3151541.html

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Can the friend of my friend be my enemy?

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Just as humans can follow complex social situations in deciding who to befriend or to abandon, it turns out that animals use the same level of sophistication in judging social configurations, according to a new study that advances our understanding of the structure of animal social networks.

The study, which appears today in the journal Animal Behaviour, is the first in which researchers applied a long-standing theory in social psychology called "structural balance," which is used to analyze human relationships, to an animal population to better understand the mechanisms that determine the structure of animal social groups. Researchers analyzed social bonds in behavioral data from a long-term study of the rock hyrax, a small mammal that lives in colonies across Africa and the Middle East.

Structural balance theory considers the positive or negative ties between three individuals, or triads, and suggests that "the friend of my enemy is my enemy" triangle is more stable and should be more common than "the friend of my friend is my enemy" triangle. Another configuration, "the friend of my friend is my friend," is considered to also be a stable configuration in the social network. The last possible triangle, "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy," presages an unstable state, according to the theory.

The potential power of structural balance theory is its ability to predict patterns in the structure of the whole social network and also predict changes that occur over time, as unstable triads are expected to change to stable ones.

"We all live in social networks of some kind, either online or offline, and we are interested in understanding how these groups form and dissolve and their internal dynamics, but while studying these human dynamics is important, it's also very difficult and in many cases impractical. So we study how sociality evolved in animals, which might offer us some insights into our own social behavior. And indeed, the structural balance theory that was developed to study human behavior appears to be relevant in animals as well," said the study's lead author Amiyaal Ilany, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.

In the study, the hyraxes tended to form balanced triads and changed unbalanced triads to balanced triads over time. However, new individuals in the population ? new pups or males that migrate into the network ? introduced social instability by often forming unbalanced triads, causing the network as a whole to retain some level of instability. The study also found that contrary to classical structural balance theory, the "enemy of my enemy is my enemy" configuration was actually a stable configuration. The results suggest that structural balance may play a role in the evolution of social structures by selecting against specific configurations. Structural balance may also serve as a psychological mechanism that allows specific social structures to exist and that prevents cooperation between members of different groups.

The authors suggest that structural balance may be prevalent in other species as well.

"The results indicated that changes in social relationships are dependent not only on two individuals, but significantly on third parties, which underscores the importance of structural balance theory in explaining the evolution of complex natural social systems," Ilany said, who was a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University when the research was begun.

###

National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS): http://www.nimbios.org/

Thanks to National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 47 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127867/Can_the_friend_of_my_friend_be_my_enemy_

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Self Improvement | The Importance of Listening Skills in ...

By Robert L Fielding ?

Communicating is all about give and take ? or is that the art of conversation? I think good listening skills are a vital component in your repertoire of communicative skills.

You?d be surprised to find out though that most concentrate on what they have to say, leaving what others say to them. In some respects that is how it is; you can?t be responsible for what others say, can you? Well, nobody?s asking you to, but what they do say might well depend on what you say.

Opening up to someone only happens if they are good listeners ? look like they are genuinely interested in what is being said. If you are just waiting for the other person to stop so that you can hold forth, you?re not a good listener, you?re certainly not a good communicator, and you are probably a crashing bore too! You?ve met the type; the guy ? yes, usually men, who tells you his life story starting with how much he earns.

You ladies must know this type ? Are you kidding me? Says one, I can?t get away from them!

Guys, if you want to go on a second date you are going to have to listen ? listen ? listen. When you do speak, make it relevant to what?s just been said ? rather than turning it into being relevant to what you want to bang on about, no matter what!

Listening also means watching too ? and so does speaking ? watch the eyes and expression of the person you are conversing with. The self-help psychologists will give you tips on this ? finish her sentence with her ? raise your eyebrows when you talk ? maintain eye contact ? all that!

The fact is that just being you is enough, don?t be someone you are not. It is so easy to spot. You?d be wasting your time and hers ? oh, there she goes!

Being yourself sort of only works if you have a pleasant, well rounded personality. If you don?t have one of those, get one and get it quick. How to do that is to listen and be interested in the speaker and what she is saying.

I go for a coffee with the nice people who run the coffee shop at the church where I attend. They are usually older people ? not much older than me ? but generally they are in their sixties. Of course, there are lots of lovely people sitting drinking coffee and chatting most days, and there are a few lonely people too ? usually males.

They too have their stories, however, and many of them have interesting stories. Listen to them ? they are out once a day and need to speak ? let them and listen and learn.

For the rest, the ones that are neutral in the personality stakes won?t appreciate it if you don?t listen to them, and hey presto ? before you know it, you?ll be the one on your own, going out once a day to be heard.

Above all ? be nice ? sure, it?s difficult sometimes ? but it IS always worth it, and here?s a bonus ? if you are good at listening, you?ll have more and more to write about.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_L_Fielding
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Listening-Skills-in-Communication&id=7505550

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Source: http://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/featured/the-importance-of-listening-skills-in-communication/

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9 Incredible Objects That Prove 3D Printers Are Totally Worth it

If you've got a 3D printer and a little bit of imagination, you can make pretty much anything. While these machines are still too expensive to be completely ubiquitous, early adopters are making some really amazing things. We got a look at a few of these objects at the 3D Printing Expo in New York this week. Here are the most unbelievable items we saw. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/T5vkOgLIhsw/9-incredible-objects-that-prove-3d-printers-are-totally-worth-it

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What President Obama can learn from female Senators (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301114798?client_source=feed&format=rss

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The Constitution and terrorism: Why suspect never heard his rights

Lyle Denniston looks at the issues of Miranda warnings, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tsarnaev?s protections under the Constitution?s Fifth Amendment, and the public safety exception.

The statements at issue:

?The police can interrogate a suspect without offering him the benefit of Miranda [warnings] if he could have information that?s of urgent concern for public safety.? That may or may not be the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.? The problem is that Attorney General Eric Holder has stretched the law beyond that scenario.?

?? Emily Bazelon, a columnist for Slate.com, in an article on April 19, ?Why Should I Care That No One?s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights???

?[As of Saturday night] Authorities have not read him his Miranda rights, which include the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Federal law enforcement officials said they plan to use a public safety exception, outlined in a 1984 Supreme Court decision, ?in order to question the suspect extensively about other potential explosive devices or accomplices and to gain critical intelligence.??

?? Washington Post story on April 21, by reporters Joel Achenbach and Robert Barnes, ?Authorities seek answers in Boston Marathon bombing.

We checked the Constitution, and?

checkSome three decades ago, the Supreme Court for the first time gave police and federal agents the authority to avoid giving criminal suspects Miranda warnings about their constitutional rights, when the public safety justified that suspension.? That authority, given in the 1984 decision of New York v. Quarles, has since been expanded by lower courts so that, even if a suspect has claimed the right to remain silent or the right to a lawyer, the questioning can go on if the public safety threat remains.

How long such questioning can continue, and what kinds of questions can be asked, is now the source of considerable uncertainty, as officials have developed interrogation policies they think are necessary in dealing with terrorist incidents.? But one thing does remain certain: the Constitution still requires that the police not use outright coercion in order to get answers even to the most pressing questions.?? If authorities want to use the evidence that they gain by such questioning, that evidence must have been given voluntarily.

In the case of the 19-year-old suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon and other crimes after that, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, there is no doubt that he has some protection under the Constitution?s Fifth Amendment against being forced to implicate himself.? He is a U.S. citizen, so he has the legal shield of the Constitution.? (On April 2, we discussed the rights during terrorism investigations of suspects who are not U.S. citizens; those rights may differ.)

The night that Tsarnaev was captured in Watertown, Mass., the chief U.S. prosecutor, Carmen Ortiz, told the news media that the suspect would not be given Miranda warnings immediately when questioning began, and she cited the ?public safety exception.?

About Constitution Check

• In a continuing series of posts, Lyle Denniston provides responses based on the Constitution and its history to public statements about its meaning and what duties it imposes or rights it protects.

Last year, in a bulletin to law enforcement officers across the nation, the FBI cautioned them that this exception applied only to questions ?directed at neutralizing an imminent threat.?? It added that ?once the questions turn from those designed to resolve the concern for safety to questions designed solely to elicit incriminating statements, the questioning falls outside the scope of the exception and within the traditional rules of Miranda.?

Related story: Constitution Check: Why would a terrorism suspect be given Miranda warnings?

However, under the terms of a 2010 Justice Department legal memo (criticized by Slate.com?s Emily Bazelon in the column quoted above), questioning of a terrorism suspect who has not been told of his rights may also continue even beyond concerns for the moment, in order potentially to get significant intelligence information ?not related to any immediate threat.?? The memo cautions that the officers conducting the interrogation should get approval from their superiors to go further into intelligence-gathering.

None of these issues that are specifically related to terrorism investigations have yet reached the Supreme Court, so federal agents and police use this added authority without knowing what the legal risks are.

There is some risk that, if the public safety exception and the 2010 Justice Department memo are pressed too far by officers in the field, they could put in jeopardy their chances of using at later trials the evidence of crime that has been gathered.? The calculation thus has to be made whether to run that risk.? That involves a balancing of the needs of trial prosecutors with the needs of finding out about potential future threats.

What investigators are generally expected to understand is that the whole purpose of the Miranda warnings is to make sure that any incriminating evidence that results from questioning is available for use at trial, and the warnings are designed to help assure that whatever the suspect has said that gets him into trouble was said voluntarily.

If the threat of terrorism rises to the level that intelligence is more important than criminal evidence, then official policy, as outlined in the 2010 Justice Department memo, for example, will give it a higher priority.

That, however, is a judgment call that has to be made one case at a time, as in the case of the Boston bombing suspect.? From all that officials involved in the investigation in Boston have said, it may well be that they have such overwhelming evidence to support prosecution that they have little need to get Tsarnaev to confess and can focus, instead, on finding out what he may know ? if anything ? about other threats or accomplices.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center?s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court?s work.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-check-limits-questioning-bombing-103826150.html

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Five Android apps that lessen the stress of your daily commute

The first time I lived in Los Angeles there were no smartphones. I spent 45 minutes each morning and each evening traveling four miles on the 405 commuting from Westwood to Beverly Hills, which was infinitely boring. But we live in a new age, and these days we have tools to help you get where you're going more efficiently.

Starting with navigation

If you've been doing your current commute for more than a week, you've probably settled in on a route that you believe is the fastest possibility. Of course, if you're using popular navigation apps like Google Nav or Waze, it could be that you're wrong. Those apps, I've found when I try to use them to get around L.A., always put you on the freeways, though you do have the option of telling the map to always avoid them. Even so, there are times when you will want to take your local freeway or interstate highway.

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Also on Android Apps

Founded by Anna Jarvis in 1908, Mother?s Day is just around the corner. Zinio?s tribute to mothers offers magazines for the wonderful diversity that is ?mom."

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But navigation apps are still good for one very important reason: they show you where you are on a map, and both Google Nav and Waze boast some cool map features. Google's key bit, to me, is its heat map. When in navigation mode, you can zoom out and view traffic levels on any street. Green means you're clear, orange means slow, and red means it's going to be a while. While Google does not take this data into account when giving you a route, you can use it to make your own, certainly. It's easy to look at the heat map and plan your own alternative route or to detour yourself when the need arises.

Waze, on the other hand, doesn't have a complete heat map of your city, but that's probably because that app has less data to work with since it's not pulling GPS data from every Android phone. It does, however, have other helpful information. It gives better freeway data than Google does, as it actually tracks vehicle speed and feed that information to other users. In those times where you need to know exactly how long it will take to get there, this is helpful. Still, you might get data on your route in some places but not others.

Waze, though, is also a social network, and it allows you to feed in information about the world around you. Waze users will, for example, make a note on the map when they drive through a construction zone, and then everyone else can see that information. If there's a bad wreck holding up traffic, they'll let you know that, too. More specific information is always good. Making educated decisions is also good.

Texting, tunes, and gas stations

A lot of folks, though, are happy with their routes and don't need a navigation app. Maybe they've gotten so used to it that they could sleep through their morning drive. Those people, I might think, would be tempted to text a bit while sitting in the car. That, as we all know, is bad news, and in some places it can earn you a ticket if you're spotted doing that by a police officer.

What those people need, then, is an app that won't let them text while they speed along the highway. That app does exist, and it's called Textecution. Allegedly, this app will prevent you from texting if you're moving more than 15 miles per hour, and you can also set it to shut off mobile data. It also costs $30 for some reason. While that?s probably too pricey for most, if you?re in the market for such an app, take it as a sign that you could have a serious problem.

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Best Educational Apps, Handpicked By Experts

Appolicious is pleased to introduce appoLearning.com, where parents, teachers and students find great education apps.

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While using your phone to actively entertain yourself while you're driving is a terrible idea, it can be quite helpful in keeping you entertained nonetheless. Most of us like to listen to something in the car or during a subway commute, and you don't need to use the FM radio or CDs or an MP3 player. Your Android phone can do all that stuff for you. If you're in the market for free apps, I heartily recommend iHeartRadio, which collects radio stations from all over the country in one streaming app. So if you've been living for years away from your hometown and feeling sad that you can't listen to your favorite childhood radio station during your commute, chances are this app has what you're looking for.

Alternatively, the ubiquitous Spotify is also available in a mobile app, but you'll need their premium service to use it. A subscriptions costs $10 a month, but the advantages are plenty. You can stream or download any song in the extremely extensive Spotify library to your phone. Finally, you can see how many different covers of Seal?s ?Kiss From a Rose? you can get through in the morning before you go mad.

One last thing I want to discuss, and it's GasBuddy. Most of us need to put gas in our cars, right? Well, this app keeps updated prices for gas stations all over, thanks to users, and it will help you find the best options near where you are and where you're going. It's an invaluable tool, especially if you live in a large city where prices can vary greatly from one neighborhood to the next.

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13405-five-android-apps-that-lessen-the-stress-of-your-daily-commute

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